It is 9:15 PM local time.
It is 2:15 PM back home. My body
has no idea what time it is or where it is; it just knows it wants to sleep.
I’m sure there are correct answers to this time/space
conundrum. The space answer is easy: I
am at Addis Ababa International Airport, located in the capital of
Ethiopia. The time answer is
disconcertingly relative. Does local
time even matter? How often do I change
my watch settings? Should I put it at my
destination’s time, as so many others have recommended?
I prefer to think pragmatically. The time is 24 hours into my journey to
Karatu, Tanzania. 24 hours ago I left my
house with two bags weighing 50 lbs each.
Mercifully, those have (hopefully) made the journey independent of my
efforts. I have landed in Frankfurt,
Germany; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; and now Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I have watched a half dozen movies and taken
probably a baker’s dozen naps, none more than 20 minutes. I have seen the Arabian desert for the first
time, even if only through a window of a plane.
I am typing through the last remaining charges on my electronic devices
as I hunker down for quite probably the most painful travel hardship I have
undertaken: a 14 hour layover in a very foreign land.
The airport is closing down for the evening. Duty-free shops, tacky souvenir shops, and
international cafés are shuttering their doors.
There are prayer rooms, separate for males and females, directly
adjacent the smoking lounge. There are a
total of 8 gates at this central hub for much of East Africa, and probably an
equal number of toilets. (Side note: If
I catch Ebola, it will be here. The
toilets are barely maintained, and no one was screened for Ebola upon
entering. I was forced out necessity to
brush my teeth there, so if you see me in the news for having Ebola, please
alert the CDC it was from Ethiopia)
Despite the late hour, the airport is alive. Hundreds of people stream past, speaking
dozens of languages, although English clearly predominates. A group of men directly next to me are speaking
in a language riddled with clicks and foreign consonant sounds. There is a line of lounge chairs that people
have staked out and are planning on sleeping on for the evening. Clearly, I am not going to be alone in
spending the night here. I hope I find
comfort and safety enough to catch another half dozen naps.
Reflecting on this moment, I am reminded of the movie Fight
Club. The movie, based on an
existentialist, antiestablishment novel by Chuck Palahniuk, espouses
self-destruction through violence as a means to break through the
materialistic, manufactured life experience of millenials. One of the many quotes that have stuck with
me is, “It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything.” At this moment, I have no idea if my luggage
will make it with me. I have minimal
access to food and water, and the overwhelming number of people around me
threatens my innate sense of safety.
Yet despite these obstacles, the experience is
liberating. The lack of Internet means I
have no idea what’s going on in the rest of the world, and quite frankly I
don’t care. The worry about publishing
the paper I’m writing? Gone. The concern about figuring out what I’m going
to do with the next 5 years of my life?
The new electronic toy I want to buy?
Even my ongoing struggle between atheism, agnosticism, and spirituality? Well, it’s kinda hard to care about such
things when life gives you more immediate concerns. Traveling is my Fight Club.
I make it sound as though I feel threatened or in any sense
of a panic. It’s actually quite the
opposite. This is not an adrenaline rush
type of satisfaction; rather an acknowledgement that I can no longer take the
simple things for granted. The
experience is quite disarming. There are
dozens of travelers asleep nearby, with their possessions laying at their
feet. Others will leave their luggage
behind to lay claim to their lounge chair as they go stretch their legs. In other words, their possessions lay
unprotected on lounge chairs in a busy airport with hundreds of people
streaming by. There is an unspoken
amount of trust between these people, people who are very unlikely to speak the
same language as the others here. In
America, inability to speak English is a tremendous barrier to trust. Here, it is a fact of everyday life.
A lounge chair has opened.
It has been over an hour before I could find an opportunity like this,
and one does not pass on an opportunity for comfortable sleep. My flight departs in just over 12 hours. 2 hours after that, I will be in
Tanzania. Assuming no issues with a
customs intake process where I’ll be bringing 50 lbs of medical supplies into
the country, I will (hopefully) have a driver waiting for me. He will take me on a 3.5 hour car ride into
the desert, where I hope I will find the Internet to post this.
It’s only after you’ve lost
everything that you’re free to do anything.
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